Observations of a Serial Expat

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Time zones matter

Middle of the night phone calls are often placed by people who should know better, like my husband’s work colleagues. These are the same colleagues who can’t participate in conference calls before 10 am their time (because apparently they haven’t had their first cup of coffee at the office until then) but will call during our dinner out (8 pm) or while we’re sleeping (2 am) to chat about an “urgent” problem.

Oddly, my own colleagues were always especially sensitive about this problem. Do folks working in international “development” have a better grasp of time zones? Are there more “urgent” problems in manufacturing? Is a 15 hour time difference (Seattle to China) easier to calculate than a 7 hour time difference (Europe to China)? Is it just a thing with engineers? The mind boggles.